Chapter 142
Heather
I had nightmares all night long. They plagued me.
Images of death. Destruction. My friends suffering.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not by far. The worst were the images of Brent cheating on me with Callista.
Those had me waking up crying. Even when I was awake, knowing it was a dream, my heart still felt broken. The hurt lingered. I couldn’t shake it.
After that, I gave up on sleeping around five in the morning, and spent the rest of the time thinking about what I was going to do.
I had a plan in place and breakfast cooked by the time Claudia came down. I just had to convince her to go along with it.
As soon as Claudia was on her second cup of coffee, I decided it was time. "I want to go to the schoolhouse today. It’s the best place to meet people."
Claudia set her mug down. "Luciana said you weren’t allowed."
I gave her a stare that said I-really-don’t-give-a-fuck.
"She’s not going to like it, and more importantly, I don’t think anyone’s going to be friendly. Not in that setting."
"I have to try. Otherwise, I say screw the whole coven, let’s grab who we can and run."
She looked at the ceiling for a second, and I imagined her praying for patience. "There’s a lesson in an hour. I guess we could say that you need to learn whatever it is that they’re teaching. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the rest." Claudia took a dainty bite of egg.
I gulped down half a glass of orange juice as I tried to come up with how to ask my next question, but I didn’t see any easy way around it. "If this goes bad, then would you fight against me or for me?"
She set her fork down. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, say Luciana wants to fight regardless of anything we do. Whose side are you on? Can you fight against your own coven?"
She blew out a big breath. "In some ways being part of the coven is easier than having your pack bond and in other ways it’s harder."
That gave me nothing. "How so?"
"Well, from what I hear, your pack bonds can be a bit on the invasive side. You can borrow power from each other, but you can also see too much of each other."
Pretty spot on for someone who wasn’t in the pack. I’d used the pack’s power to help break Serena’s spell, and I got a headful of Brent’s emotions on a daily basis. "Yeah. So, the harder?"
She pushed her plate away. "I don’t have to obey an alpha like you do, but there are consequences for going against the coven. For trying to break away."
"What kind of consequences?"
"I could lose myself. My soul. It could kill me."
This was way more complicated than I’d thought. "Right. So, extreme measures have to be taken." That made me wonder... "How did your mom get away?"
Claudia fidgeted a little.
It was probably rude for me to ask, but I had to. If my aunt could leave, then so could Claudia.
"I promised to stay and help Luciana if she’d let my mother go."
"And your mom let you do that?"
"She didn’t know. I can enhance people’s abilities and Luciana would never say no to more power. I told her I’d stay, take the vow, and help her if my mom was allowed to leave." I started to speak but she cut me off. "It was dumb, but my mom needed to go. If she didn’t, it was going to be bad. She and Luciana were fighting everyday and Luciana’s patience had run out. I was scared for her. So, I did it. And Raphael stayed to help me. He’s the only one that knows."
That was a huge sacrifice she’d made for her mother. "So, what were you going to do? You can’t want to stay here."
"And be her pawn? No. I don’t want to be here. I don’t know who I am or what I want, but it’s not this." She met my gaze. "My plan was to find you. You were our only hope. If you can’t fix this, we’re all lost. And to some of the people in the coven—" she shrugged—"maybe that’s okay. They’re with what they’re doing. They think they’re right and that witches are better than both wolves and humans. Plus we have so much more reason to want revenge. The wolves were never persecuted like we were. We burned, and for some hiding here, it still chafes."
"So what happens if you were to come with me? Stay with the pack?"
"I don’t think anything. At least not while you were alive. Luciana wouldn’t dare. And I’m pretty sure with your abilities, we could find a way to break the curse without the unfortunate side effects."
Yeah. I didn’t want to try that unless it was really necessary. Those side effects were pretty extreme.
I stood to put my dishes in the sink and dropped it on the ground. I winced as it rattled, but didn’t break.
"That unbreakable spell is really handy," Claudia said.
"No kidding." I picked up the plate. "Let’s find out who’s chafing. It can’t be just a handful of you. There’s got to be more. I’ll offer my protection. I’ll fight for you. But you have to take the first step."
She nodded. "That’s all we can ask for." She glanced at the clock. "Class starts in an hour."
Enough time for me to clean this up and figure out a plan. "Good. I’ll be ready."
She got up and went upstairs.
I was almost done with the dishes when Raphael came down. "You coming to the schoolhouse with us?"
He nodded. "Someone’s got to look out for you two."
I wiped off my hands and hung the dishtowel over the edge of the sink. "Tell me this—waste of time or no?"
"Eh, we’ll see."
"What’s your story? You have powers? A specialty?"
"I’m good at defensive stuff. Claudia enhances others’ abilities."
"And Daniel?"
He shoved his hands in his shorts’ pockets. "Much to his mother’s disappointment, he’s got a little of everything, and not much of anything."
Poor Daniel. Every time I learned something new from him, I felt worse. "Right. I bet that frustrates her."
"Yup. That’s why she was so ready for you to marry him. Gain some power that way."
"Yeah, I’m not sure it works that way. Moot point anyhow."
Claudia came downstairs. She was dressed in her usual peasant shirt and cut off skirt. Both the twins always wore a pair of worn-in brown leather flip-flops. Claudia’s thick, nearly black hair was separated into two braids. "Let’s do this."
I stumbled as I walked, but Raphael caught me.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Sorry. I don’t know what happened. Apparently, I’m dropping things and tripping over my own feet today."
"Give yourself a break," Claudia said. "You didn’t get much sleep."
I was tired, but it wasn’t that. Or it wasn’t just that. My limbs felt like lead. They were heavy. Like I was moving through sludge. But I wasn’t dizzy.
Claudia was right. It was exhaustion. I’d been through a major emotional upheaval the past couple of weeks and it wasn’t going to get any better any time soon. It was weighing on me. That was all.